<p>on the subject of being thankful.. i found this really touching article that was posted up on some other board...
i think that all of us can get pretty self-absorbed in our lives..
and all the times we stress and spaz out may sometime blind us from the bigger picture. (i know that this happens to me a lot these days..)
but reading this article really made me think how lucky and fortunate i am.. and some of my worries and anxieties seem so trivial in comparison to others' sufferings..
Let's be thankful for all the things we have.. esp. for the fact that we are alive.. and we are blessed with all kinds of circumstances that let us apply to such an amazing school like columbia</p>
<p>xxxxxx</p>
<p>Wake up call- sophomore boy from my school dies in car
crash</p>
<p>Sometimes we lose ourselves in the difficult world we
live in. We forget we're alive, and we forget how to
be thanful. We worry about trivial things, and we
don't appreciate life. To all of you who are worried
about college, please take the time to realize what is
truly important-your friends, your family, and what
you chose to do with your life. Nick Jennings, a
sophomore in my school, died in a car crash two days
ago. Please take the time to read my friend's
editorial.</p>
<p>This is the hardest thing Ive ever had to write.
Ive started and stopped this editorial more times
than I care to count. With bold keystrokes, I have
condemned pages of prose to mechanical oblivion.
For once in my life, Im at a loss for words.
How do you write about the unthinkable? How do you
seek to answer the unanswerable? How do you address
the unspeakable abomination that is an untimely death,
in which the only real culprit is malicious Fate?
Truth is, I could write this editorial about a
thousand things. I could write about Nicks penchant
for baggy clothes and obscene belt buckles. I could
write about the sardonic, wiseass humor he brought to
every classroom.
I could write about crying in the gym the day he died,
and about how it was the first time Id cried since I
was cut from baseball as a sophomore. I could write
about calling my little brother on the phone to tell
him.
I could write about laying a wreath and cross at the
scene of the crash the day he died, and seeing the
Guitar Night poster that some caring soul had framed
and left there.
I could write about how at the memorial on Sunday, I
saw people crying, people who Id never before
seennor ever expected to seeexpress anything
remotely akin to compassion, or sadness, or any human
emotion. I saw people crying, people who had never met
him, who were weeping because now theyd never get the
chance.
But how can any of these things do justice to the loss
of Nicks life? To attempt to write about it is
absurd, for no words can capture the horror of a
sixteen year old boy with a shattered back and a
broken heart lying on the side of the road like a used
up rag doll. The most beautiful sermon possible, eve n
if delivered by Christ Himself, could not explain away
why this boyGod, a mere child!---was apologizing to
his friends and family as his life bled away in a
Boston hospital.
Can you see him now? Can you see him lying motionless
on Proctor Hill as the paramedics arrive, and the
first words they hear from his mouth are: Charley,
are you ok? Charley, are you ok? Oh god
I cant feel
my body
Very few people in this world deserve such a death.
Nick Jennings was not one of them.</p>
<p>I met Nick in our firstand onlyyear of high school
football. I disliked him instantly. He was a punk, a
snotty freshman jackass who ran with a wild
upperclassmen crowd. If you werent in his little
clique, he looked at you with nothing but disdain,
irrespective of how you might treat him. I grew to
hate him intensely.
When I walked into 3rd Period Improv this year to find
him on the roll there, I was ready for another year of
mutual dislike.
But something had changed in Nick. I dont know what
it was, or when it happened, or who caused it. Neither
do I especially care to know. All I know is that
something had changed. Nick had morphed into a
disgustingly respectable young mana transformation
that put all of my carefully laid plans to hate him in
check.
While still an artist of the vaunted Jennings wit, he
managed to joke, now, without seeming like a complete
jackass. His jokes ceased to be at the expense of
othershe joked with people.
The fondest memory I will ever have of Nick is from
that class. Nick and Justin Conroy, who, in that
class, were like brothers, were partnered up for a
mime, in which they played firefighters. When Ms. T
told them to play off of the manly bonding theme,
they executed, without hesitation, the most beautiful
and appropriate best friend handshake Ive ever seen
in my life. There was something about that
momentsomething with the light, and the way it shone
down off Justins hair and Nicks infectious smile;
something about the speed and accuracy in which they
conducted the ritualthat imprinted it indelibly in my
memory, and I hope I always carry it with me.
Its no secret, to anyone who knew him, that Nick was
far from angelic. He was a daredevil with everything
he did, and his feats of derring-do didnt end at how
fast he could drive or how outrageous his classroom
antics could be. He drank and smoked and partied
wildly throughout much of freshman year. But when the
change came, as far a I know, he curtailed his vices.
Neither drink nor drugs were factors in his crash. And
the fact that Nick was, as they say, on the mendor,
if you prefer, getting his life back on track, if it
was ever off itmakes his death, for me, that much
more unbearable.
It was once said that, Those who do not fear death
have only experienced it from the chin up. If thats
true, anyone who knew him would tell you that Nick had
been brain dead for years before his body followed
suit. His motto was Live fast, ride hard,, and he
was as solemnly observant of that maxim as any monk is
of his vows. He was true to the point of death:
riding, stupidly, in a speeding Ford Explorer without
his seatbelt on.</p>
<p>And there are so many more things I want to mention,
and to say so much more clearly.</p>